Laptops and beyond: solutions for business

The most recent Gartner “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies” shows that edge computing is on the verge of becoming an “innovation trigger”, with mainstream adoption expected by the early 2020s. But how will it affect the security and productivity concerns of businesses?

Our recent research found that data security and improving productivity are still the key IT investment priorities for businesses, with 62% and 54% of businesses respectively citing these two issues as their focus over the next 12 months.

In the world of IT, a lot can change in two years – a period which might as well be a lifetime given today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape. Yet despite modern technologies bringing greater opportunity and threat – often in equal measure – Europe’s IT decision makers are very much focused on many of the same tools in 2018 as they were in 2016, according to our latest research.

The enterprise smart glasses market is no longer an obscure, futuristic idea. Its impact is real and tangible for many businesses. We surveyed 1,036 senior IT decision makers, in medium and large organisations in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Benelux (Netherlands and Belgium) and found that 82% of enterprises predict that smart glasses will be used within their business in the next three years. But what is the driving force behind this uptake? Which industry is taking on this technology?

Businesses across the world have been embracing innovative technologies for years. From the advent of laptops, to smartphones today, successful enterprises have always been eager to look ahead at the improvements technology could offer their bottom line.

Wearable technology is nothing short of a revolution, with new devices disruption established markets and creating entirely new fields. Forecasts point to worldwide spending on wearable devices reaching $30 billion by 2020.

Mobile computing has been changing the world of business for over 30 years. From employees that expect to work anywhere and anytime, to the consumerisation of business IT under bring your own device (BYOD) policies, no organisation has been able to ignore the revolutionary changes that mobile computing has engendered.

The rise of edge computing is helping organisations transition to a more productive and secure era of mobile working in the age of IoT, as well as enabling new methods of gathering, analysing and redistributing data and derived intelligence. As the connected devices market, including wearables, continues to grow, so too must IT managers be able to address the vast amounts of data they bring before being able to securely and efficiently integrate them into the business.

Mobility remains a key enabler in business but, as the technology landscape continues to evolve, the ways in which it must be executed have changed. Our latest research reveals that, as organisations look to successfully embrace mobility within this constant state of change, data security, cloud-based solutions, and improving productivity through IT are key priorities for investment over the next twelve months.

As medical employees increasingly hold the expectation – and necessity – of working effectively from anywhere, healthcare organisations must enable simple, secure enterprise mobility solutions to fully support mobile staff. This is while maintaining top level, robust security solutions to ensure that neither organisation nor patients’ sensitive data is at risk.

We are entering a golden age of mobile working, with a convergence of technological advances making it easier than ever for healthcare professionals to get things done remotely – be it from home, on the move or otherwise away from the work station.

Recent headlines across Europe have described healthcare IT as ‘archaic’, ‘slow’, and ‘not streamlined’. But as technology continues its rapid rush forward in the private sector, healthcare organisations need to ensure their technology infrastructure is evolving, rather than stagnating. The benefits of technology are well-documented, bringing increases to efficiency and overall patient care, while similarly the ramifications of an out-dated architecture can detrimentally impact these areas, as well as expose organisations to crippling cyber-attacks

No industry or sector is immune to hacking. This was made painfully clear when a cyber-attacker using WannaCry ransomware crippled healthcare institutions around the world. A May 2016 report from the Ponemon Institute indicated that more than 25 per cent of all data breaches were related to health care. The estimated loss to the industry is $5.6 billion per year. These stats should be a wake-up call.

In the UK, a recent Digital Health survey of healthcare IT leaders found that 96 per cent see “increased benefits” from working remotely. Many healthcare organisations are now developing their own mobile apps, and healthcare practitioners are increasingly using their own devices when working remotely. Such apps can avoid the risk posed by third parties such as advertisers.

A recent Timewise survey confirmed the importance of having a flexible working strategy in place, with 90 per cent of workers stating a dislike of the nine-to-five model, and 87 per cent revealing that they either already work flexibly or wish for the opportunity to do so. We’ve outlined three areas to consider in order to ensure that such a strategy remains both productive and secure within your organisation.

As the business world adapts to changing work patterns and device demands from its staff, the technology they use – and the work it contains – needs to be robustly protected. The rise in popularity of remote and flexible working means greater pressure on IT departments to ensure that data is kept safe.

Serverless computing, although a fairly new concept, is becoming increasingly common within the IT vernacular. For organisations looking to build a more agile, scalable and cost-effective infrastructure, serverless is often cited as central to enabling this. But what exactly does serverless computing mean, and how does it fit in within your existing cloud architecture?

Organisations across the globe are embracing remote and flexible working, and, here in Europe, three out of every four have some work schedule flexibility, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). However, greater mobility undoubtedly brings with it evolving security threats, which look to take advantage of a broader network perimeter and an ever-growing number of entry points.

A recent article from Gartner showed that the growing need to manage applications on unmanaged devices owned by employees or contractors is driving adoption of standalone mobile app management (MAM) software and services. Meanwhile, the mobile device management (MDM) market is expected to grow from $1.69 billion last year to $5.32 billion by 2021, according to ResearchandMarkets.

With millennials and Generation Z soon set to dominate the workforce, organisations must react and adapt to the requirements and behaviours of these younger workers. According to Deloitte’s Millennial Survey 2017, flexible working is one such requirement – cited as crucial in improving productivity and staff engagement, as well as health and happiness.

The global mobile workforce is expected to climb from 1.45 billion to 1.87 billion by 2022, as people take advantage of their right to work from home, as well as their mobile working ability. Research shows a direct correlation in Europe between flexible working and employee happiness and engagement – demonstrating that the benefits of such an approach work both ways.

The way we work today is vastly different from just a few years ago. With remote and flexible working on the rise, an average 3 out of 4 employees in Europe have some work-schedule flexibility and most think flexible working improves their work-life balance. Moreover, almost half (47%) of respondents to a UK employee benefits survey cite flexible working as the most desirable workplace benefit, and a further eight out of ten employers and employees believe that flexible working improves productivity.

For employees, the benefits of flexible working are often focused on improving their work-life balance, as well as looking after their health and wellbeing. However, these arrangements also impact positively on productivity. Research from the CIPD has shown that implementing flexible working practices can improve staff engagement, motivation and productivity. Companies and organisations stand to benefit from this trend as much as their employees do.

The way we work today is vastly different from working practices of only a few years ago. New technologies, expectations, policies and even physical work spaces all play into a new way of doing business, and with four generations in the workplace, organisations are no longer able to rely on a one-size-fits-all model to attract, retain and nurture the best talent.

Against a backdrop of the EU employment market being the strongest it has been since its records began (71.1 percent), ¹the way we work today is vastly different from working practices of just a few years ago. New technologies, expectations, policies and even physical work spaces all play into a new way of doing business, and with four generations in the workplace, organisations are no longer able to rely on a one-size-fits-all model to attract, retain and nurture the best from the talent pool.

Work isn’t what it used to be. Where employees were once expected to perform all their tasks in front of one particular desktop and monitor, businesses today know that work might take place in the office, at home, on the road or in a variety of remote locations. In Europe, 71 per cent of organisations now permit working from home and 76 per cent have made company systems and data available to remote workers¹.

As technology continues to drive the transition towards mobile and remote working across Europe, a more content and productive workforce is slowly beginning to emerge. The pace of change means that today’s employees fully expect flexible options that cater to their work-life balance, wellbeing and outside commitments.

As the global workforce becomes increasingly mobile, and more employees hold the expectation of being able to work from anywhere, organisations need to enable simple and secure enterprise mobility solutions to support this new model of working. This is all while maintaining a robust security infrastructure which ensures an organisation’s business-critical data remains as safe as possible.

As the idea of the ‘workplace’ is gradually unshackled from its traditional definition of performing tasks from a fixed, shared office, so too does business mobility continue its ascent – two trends driving one another.

The dawn of quantum computing means more highly-evolved protection methods are necessary to fight growing security threats: enter quantum cryptography

Considering heightened security threats, data proliferation and the upsurge in mobility, Edge Computing seems a natural solution to today’s infrastructure limitations. – From enhanced data processing to more robust security, many organisations are now looking towards the edge.

Securing corporate data is an ongoing battle for European IT leaders. The ramifications of a breach – beyond disrupting workflows and productivity – can be crippling for a business’s reputation and bottom line.

The benefits of a smartly-executed mobility strategy are well-documented, from improving workflows and productivity to delivering more cost-effective operations. Yet IT managers are equally well-versed in the security challenges such a strategy brings, in particular as they look to successfully balance the aforementioned benefits with growing threats from data-hunting cyber-criminals.

As the global workforce becomes mobile, and more employees hold the expectation of working from anywhere, organisations need to enable simple and secure enterprise mobility solutions to support this new model of working.

Mobility is firmly making its way towards the heart of the workplace. For more and more people, work is no longer defined by the traditional requirement to perform tasks from a fixed and central location.

We are entering a golden age of mobile working, thanks to the convergence of technological advances that make it easier than ever to get things done from home, on the road or otherwise away from an office.

Mobile working is now a mainstream activity, with many companies' employees regularly taking their work laptops on business trips or working from home. For those companies' IT departments, this opens up a plethora of potential scenarios where corporate data can end up at risk.

We’ve created the Make IT work Guide for senior IT decision makers which explores how to overcome today’s IT challenges and to be prepared for tomorrow, including insight from analysts, pan-European research and advice from our own experts. The guide is centred around what we believe should be the core pillars for a successful IT strategy including manageability, security, reliability and connectivity.

It’s now possible to achieve efficient flexible working with tighter security measures around critical data. The first mobile zero client proposition in the market – Toshiba Mobile Zero Client (TMZC) – overcomes the challenges of thin client solutions to support the evolving needs of modern business, based on its award-winning B2B notebook products.

As companies try to adapt to changing working behaviours – most notably the rise of mobile and flexible working – they need to ensure their hardware meets the increased demands this brings in terms of connectivity, mobility and security.

According to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, 70 per cent of European workers require some level of digital skill to do their job. And yet the same report tells us that 40 per cent currently lack these skills.

According to Gartner, 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, climbing to upwards of 20 million by 2020. This presents a significant opportunity for organisations to enable new capabilities and integrate better workflows and efficiencies.

The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and a machine-to-machine (M2M) driven internet over the past few years has been rapid. Computers are no longer the only ‘online’ machines.

Much is being made of the impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), with Gartner reporting that over 50 per cent of companies affected by the new legislation will not be in full compliance with its requirements by the enforcement date of May 25th, 2018.

As employee demand for mobile working opportunities continues to grow, so must businesses strive to equip them with the tools needed to achieve this goal.